This week's Readalong doesn't have quite as many descriptions of the moon as last week's Readalong, but there is still at least 1 description for each day this week.

This week's Readalong also includes the full moon of Rethe 8, which is not only described when Gandalf and Pippin see it rise on the way to Gondor (the evening of Rethe 7), and when Frodo and Faramir watch it set from the Window on the West (before dawn on Rethe 8), but it's also what Théoden uses as a timeline for the Muster of Rohan (on the 3rd day after the full moon).

This week also appears to cram almost half of Book III, from Chapter 8 to almost the end of Chapter 11, all into 1 day. I think that's going to be longest reading in 1 day so far, and probably the longest there will be; even more pages than the date for "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields" next week.

But before all that we start the week off with the Battle of the Hornburg! This week covers the rest of Book III from "Helm's Deep" through "The Palantír", Book IV up to "Journey to the Cross-Roads", and we'll also start The Return of the King up to the beginning of "The Muster of Rohan" chapter.

The waxing gibbous moon setting over the Battle of Helm's Deep and the flooding Isengard
[In reply to]

Can't Post

If you wanted to see the waxing gibbous moon set last night, as it set over the Battle of Helm's Deep, and as Merry and Pippin saw it setting over the flooding Isengard, you had to stay up pretty late, since it set around 3 A.M.

It must have been only a couple of hours before dawn on Rethe 5 when the Huorns passed Théoden's camp on the Road to Isengard in the night, since "the moon was gone" but "stars were shining above". Implying the moon had already set and wasn't just covered by clouds. So although the Riders didn't sleep the rest of the night after that, they didn't have to wait too long for the dawn at least

Just before midnight on Rethe 5, the moon would have been just past its highest peak in the southern sky, making its way west, when Pippin looked into the palantír by Dol Baran, and then the Nazgûl flew across the moon on its way to Isengard.

The moon over the Hill of Erech, the night of 1419 Rethe 8/9?
[In reply to]

Can't Post

I noticed there was no description of the moon over Aragon on the way to the Stone of Erech from the 'Paths of the Dead'.

Since it was only the next night after the full moon, it would have been round and bright, rising before the "King of the Dead" and his "Shadow Host" on the way to the Hill of Erech, but they reach it "in a darkness as black as the caverns in the mountains" just before midnight when the moon would have almost reached its peak in the southern sky. This was the night before the darkness started flowing out of Mordor, so I guess it was just overcast in that area :)